The number of fixed broadband subscribers globally rose 10 percent annually in the second quarter to 449 million, fueled by the growth in Asia Pacific where China accounted for more than half of the region's total, a United States-based research firm said Tuesday.

Chinese broadband users contributed to 59 percent of the Asia Pacific region by the end of June.

"The key fixed broadband subscriber growth was found in the Asia Pacific region, adding approximately 3 million subscribers in the second (quarter)," said Jason Blackwell, an analyst at ABI Research.

The firm also predicted that China will see more construction of Internet networks with higher speed in the country.

Because of continued economic uncertainties the broadband user base grew slowly in Europe and the US, industry insiders said.

In contrast, China's broadband market has still much room to grow as its penetration rate is only 28 percent. Chinese operators may need to increase the current average bandwidth which is about 2Mbps (megabits per second), according to ABI research.

China Telecom will invest 26 billion yuan (US$3.83 billion) over two years in Shanghai, and by 2012 Shanghai Telecom plans to speed up home broadband access tenfold to 20Mbps.